The inside story of the planning, execution, rousing aftermath, and ultimate downfall of the kidnappers of beer tycoon Alfred "Freddy" Heineken in 1983, which resulted in the largest ransom ... Read allThe inside story of the planning, execution, rousing aftermath, and ultimate downfall of the kidnappers of beer tycoon Alfred "Freddy" Heineken in 1983, which resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for an individual.The inside story of the planning, execution, rousing aftermath, and ultimate downfall of the kidnappers of beer tycoon Alfred "Freddy" Heineken in 1983, which resulted in the largest ransom ever paid for an individual.
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- 1 nomination
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaWillem Holleeder (Sam Worthington) went on to become a kingpin in the Dutch underworld, being held responsible for ordering several contract killings, amongst which, the 2003 assassination of his former best friend and co-kidnapper Cor van Hout (Jim Stugess). When the film was released in 2015, Holleeder was in custody awaiting trial for many of those contracts, however, not in relation to the Cor van Hout case. In July 2019, Holleeder was found guilty of five murders and ordered to serve a life sentence.
- GoofsThe end-titling states that Mr. Heineken died in 2003. He died on the 3 January 2002.
- Quotes
Freddy Heineken: There are two ways a man can be rich in this world, he can have a lot of money, or he can have a lot of friends. But he cannot have both.
- Crazy creditsSPOILERS: Epilogue: "An anonymous tip first led the police to suspect Cor and his friends. The police never revealed who sent the tip or what it said. After his kidnapping, Freddy Heineken created one of the world's foremost private security firms. He died in 2003. Jan 'Cat' Boellard served 12 years. Martin 'Brakes' Erkamps served an 8-year sentence. Frans 'Spikes' Meijer escaped from a criminal psychiatric hospital and fled to Paraguay. Reporter Peter R. de Vries tracked him down 10 years later. He was extradited to the Netherlands to serve his time. Cor Van Hout and Willem Holleeder each received an 11-year sentence. Returning to crime, they rose to power to become the 'godfathers of the Netherlands.' In 2003, Cor was gunned down by an assassin. His killer was never identified. The ransom was the largest ever paid for an individual at the time. A significant portion of the money was never recovered. After the kidnappers divided the cash, they were never together again as a group."
- ConnectionsVersion of The Heineken Kidnapping (2011)
If you check out the literature online about it, you'll see that – surprise, surprise – liberties have been taken with the plot, but, from what I can gather, it is reasonably faithful – if you excuse the obvious parts which have been 'Hollywooded up' to speed the story up. The second plus point is Anthony Hopkins, who plays the titular millionaire. Always a good performance from 'Sir Tony.' Unfortunately, he's not in it as much as most of us would probably like. The main story focuses on the criminals, half of which are pretty bland, although one is played by Sam Worthington and another does have a family who features prominently, fleshing out his character a bit more. You may have to wait about forty-five minutes before we meet Hopkins though.
The film does its best to get us to empathise with the criminals and, for the most part, it sort of succeeds. We can see that they're the down-on-their-luck sorts who are only really after the money, but, at the end of the day, they are criminals, so – deep down – we're pretty much waiting for them to get their comeuppance.
If you're interested in the history of the case, it's probably best to read one of the books. Granted, I haven't, but I'm happy to settle for the big screen adaptation. Yeah, it passes the time – it's nothing special and I probably won't remember it in a year or so, but it kept me just about entertained enough while I was watching it.
- bowmanblue
- Jul 14, 2015
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- Kidnapping Mr. Heineken
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Box office
- Gross worldwide
- $3,184,017
- Runtime1 hour 35 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1